You Are Already Dead

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"He hits you with his fingertips at five different pressure points on your body. And then he lets you walk away. But once youve taken five steps, your heart explodes in your body, and you fall to the floor, dead."

A common trope in works featuring martial arts, this involves some form of Finishing Move that does not take effect immediately. When used with martial arts, it may involve Pressure Point attacks or some form of Ki Attacks. Assassins may use Universal Poison to achieve a similar effect. In video games, Damage Over Time abilities often have this effect.

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When used with swords there are a number of common variations, often shown with a Diagonal Cut that doesn't seem to have cut through the object until an outside force reveals the cut was so surgically neat that at first you didn't see it. In the Single-Stroke Battle, the two sides charge each other and attack. There will be a pause as the two hold their finishing pose, then one (or both) will fall down. One of the most stylish versions is for a Master Swordsman to perform a series of lightning-fast slashes, and then slowly and dramatically sheath their sword until you hear a *click*, upon which their opponent bursts out bleeding or literally falls into pieces.

This trope is not necessarily limited to close combat, either. In more modern settings, gunshot wounds can often have this effect, since getting shot typically feels like getting punched hard and it is not uncommon for victims to take some time to realize it. This can be exploited for dramatic effect in war movies, where fatally wounded soldiers wander the battlefield before succumbing.

Examples:

Kenshiro, the protagonist, used this as his Catch-Phrase (お前はもう死んでいる "Omae wa mou shindeiru") when he made his opponent's head or entire body explode with superpowered Pressure Point martial arts. To elaborate, he uses pressure points in the opponent's body so that said pressure points communicate with the brain in such a way that over time, the body will be commanded to bend unnaturally, disable parts of itself, or most commonly, become so overtaxed that the head and everything else explodes.

Subverted a couple of times. One time a mook attempts to do this to Kenshiro, only for his own head to explode.note Kenshiro hit a pressure point in his face a few moments before, making it a Time-Delayed Death. And Bat claims to be able to do this to a mook, only he was lying so he could use the mook's horrified reaction to retreat.

A non-lethal version occurs during Ken's short-lived duel with Shin at the beginning of the series. Countering Shin's Nanto Gokuto Ken with his own Hokuto Hiei Ken in a memorable instance of Air Jousting, Ken lands, slowly rises, and turns around to face his rival, only to realize Shin's attack has incapacitated him by cutting the tendons in his limbs. Ken repays the favor in his rematch with Shin. Once Shin starts panicking, Ken tells him to relax, he had missed his vitals.

Also happens to Kenshiro in his first duel with Souther. Kenshiro strikes one of Souther's fatal pressure points and tells him he's dead in three seconds. Souther responds by counting down himself... At which point he reveals he's not only immune to Kenshiro's style but used a delayed attack on Kenshiro, opening a series of wounds on Kenshiro's body. Things rapidly go downhill for Kenshiro.

Vershlag, a technique from Panzer Kunst anti-cyborg martial arts, basically works like this. Instead of manipulating Ki, however, it sets up inside a metal body a large number of Solitary Waves (from several hundreds to tens of thousands if the Kunstler using it is good enough) that are set to converge in one point after a certain amount of time, blowing up the victim's head (and sometimes a good part of his/her surroundings). Bonus points for the fact that the delay set on this technique allows it to kill its victim even a month after it was set up, effectively making them live with an unavoidable death sentence.

In the Sechs vs Zekka fight. The first major blow Zekka does to Sechs' side is what kills or destroys his body. Everything afterward was Zekka toying with Sechs.

In Black Bullet, Kisara Tendo faces her treacherous brother in a duel. When she slashes his leg off, he panics, begs for mercy, and confesses that he was the one who arranged their parents' deaths. Satisfied, she walks away. Rentaro commends her for showing mercy. She asks what he is talking about, as behind them, her brother suddenly splits in half vertically.

Sui-Feng's shikai guarantees death in two hits, which combined with her high speed, leads to this trope. The target won't even notice they've been stabbed once half the time, let alone stabbed twice.

Byakuya has a special technique called Senka that is based around this trope. He stabs the target in two very specific places on the body that guarantees both the destruction of their powers and their death without them even being aware they've been hit until they're already dying. The main difference between his technique and Sui-Feng's shikai is that Sui-Feng can hit anywhere on the body whereas Byakuya's technique is based around the two parts of the body that generate both life and power in an individual, so he has to hit a very specific location twice for his technique to work at all. Only the main character has survived being hit with this technique; even he couldn't tell he'd even been hit once, let alone twice, until he was actually falling, and even he lost his powers. Sort of. Being the main character, Loophole Abuse occurred. Rather pragmatically, Byakuya prefers to use this as his opening move to a fight. If his opponent is fast enough to block or dodge it, he moves on to the rest of his arsenal of moves. If they're not...why should he have wasted any more time on a weakling that he can dispose of in less than a second?

This actually happens a lot in Claymore, due to the main characters being sword-wielders who can move at incredible speeds. The Quicksword technique is probably the best example of this; at one point, Clare "dodges" past three monsters, and then has a conversation with them that lasts a good thirty seconds before they collapse in pieces. A minor variation occurs in most non-human cases, though; most realize they're already dead, and there's a moment of horror before the laws of physics decide to pay attention.

If your true name is written in the eponymous Artifact of Doom and the writer had your face in mind, you are dead; most likely, you will have a lethal heart attack in 40 seconds.

Light literally says "He's already dead" in episode 24, at 10:30.

Digimon Adventure: At the climax of the 49th episode, Agumon warp evolves to WarGreymon, slices up Machinedramon, makes a Three-Point Landing and reverts to Koromon before Machinedramon falls to pieces. It only happens after a brief debate over the effectiveness of WarGreymon's assault, where Koromon reminds Machinedramon of the special power of WarGreymon's claws. This trope is dub-only - in the original, Koromon instead responds to Mugendramon with a touching "World of Cardboard" Speech.

Future Trunks' first battle with Freeza's henchmen is actually a Subversion of this: Trunks charges through Frieza's henchmen with his sword. He leaves one henchman standing... whose armor and scouter proceed to fall apart after several seconds, having been cut into pieces in a fraction of a second, and yet the henchman actually survives.

In the seventh movie Future Trunks battles Android 14. Their fight comes to an end when their blows collide, 14's fists against Trunks' sword. Android 14 comes out seemingly unscathed, but as he runs at Trunks his body splits in half just before he reaches him.

Parodied at one Martial Arts Tournament, when Mr. Satan and Android 18 are fighting. 18 says she'll throw the match if he agrees to pay her double the prize money. He does, and throws a heavy punch to knock her out of the ring. 18 just takes the punch to the face without moving, asks if that was really the best finishing move Mr. Satan could come up with... then throws herself backward out of the ring. Mr. Satan then tries to pass off this bizarre chain of events as this trope to the confused audience: a "delayed reaction" punch.

In the dub of Dragon Ball Kai, Future Trunks says "You're already dead." to Cyborg Frieza just before their fight. If you can call it a fight. This very fight involves Trunks dicing Frieza into several pieces.

Gohan does a non-lethal variant to a group of Freeza's soldiers in Resurrection F; he attacks various vital points in a matter of seconds to knock them all out at the same time.

Excel Saga parodies this in their Fist of the North Star episode by having victims turn into plushies.

Goblin Slayer: Wizard, from Priestess's first party, was stabbed once in the gut with a dagger by a goblin. While gut wounds could usually be healed, the dagger was poisoned, and trying to heal her without an antidote would have only prolonged her suffering. When Goblin Slayer arrived, the poison had already spread too far through her body, leaving him with no other alternative but to give her a Mercy Kill.

In Godzilla: The Planet Eater, this version of King Ghidorah is an extra-dimensional creature that warps spacetime around him. The crew aboard the Arartum realize Ghidorah's already killed them because the computer's sensors can't detect any life signs in the very room they're in. Sure enough, the starship erupts in a massive explosion a few seconds later within Ghidorah's coils.

In one of the tests in Hunter × Hunter, Killua was faced off against a hulking mass murderer from a high-security prison. Killua took three steps, then held out the killer's still-beating heart in his hand.

In The Irregular at Magic High School main character Tatsuya's decomposition magic instantly renders anything he wants to, including humans, into pure elements. You get to see a hazy outline of the person's shape before their now unbound atoms bond together.

In Part 2, Lisa Lisa dispatches a vampire mook in this manner. She brushes him with her Ripple-infused scarf and moves forward, not waiting for him to catch on and melt.

Played with in Part 3. When DIO uses The World to stop time and circumvent Kakyoin's 20-Meter Emerald Splash trap, he has The World punch a hole through his torso, then casually comments on how, as a result of time having stopped, he didn't realize yet that he was dead.

In the final episode of KatanagatariShichika hits an opponent who is wielding a sword that is meant to keep people from dying with an attack that kills him several times saying "You've now died 272 times" before said opponent collapses to the ground.

Parodied in Lucky Star when Soujirou tenses up his arm muscles to demonstrate how to get a mosquito stuck:

Mahou Sensei Negima!: Kuu Fei and Mana's fight in the fighting tournament ends with one of these (in a non-lethal way). Kuu's palm is on Mana's abdomen as Mana believes she has bested Kuu, but that Kuu put up a remarkable fight. And they have a brief exchange before Kuu informs Mana that that wasn't all. Then the back of Mana's shirt explodes from the attack. Even if the attack was released after the exchange, Kuu clearly landed the strike at the start of the conversation. This is the first time Kuu ever uses a ki technique.

This is Brook's preferred method of fighting, his trademark and one of his catchphrases. He is able to slowly walk ten feet, and then put his sword away with enough time to say "I already cut you" and the name of the attack before his slash takes effect. His original attack would "merely" cut the opponent, while his improved attack with his sharpened sword Soul Solid harnesses the full potential of his Devil Fruit powers, channeling the underworld's energies to freeze all the blood in the opponent as they are cut.

Zoro's Shishi Sonson (translation: Lion's Song), which he used to finish off Mr. 1, also fits this trope.

Jimbei's Arabesque Brick Fist attack fits as well. He'll strike the air, and the water manipulation that comes with Fishman Karate will carry the blow over to the targets a couple of seconds later through the air's humidity and the target's own bodily water. From an outside perspective, all you see is him punching the air, and a few seconds later everyone goes flying like the punch had struck dead on.

Subverted, where Ranma spends half an episode dodging Ryoga's Bakusai Tenketsu, which can supposedly shatter anything by exploiting natural weakpoints. When Ranma finally beats Ryoga, he is casually hit with the technique by Cologne. A look of horror spreads across his face... only for Cologne to reveal its true nature - a mining technique designed for use against rocks (which it had been used on every other time) and inert against humans.

A more literal example happened earlier in the fight. Ranma had been unable to deal any damage to Ryoga during the fight, so he tries launching a punch using the recoil from a tree branch to add to the damage. Ryoga immediately shouts, "You punch like a baby!" while delivering a counterattack. A second later, though, Ryoga begins to double over in pain.

Very common in Saint Seiya, to the point where people can receive an attack, wax philosophical, and suddenly get flung across the room, usually through some pillars.

Happens at least once in Samurai Champloo, when Jin is stabbed in the back by Kariya, only for Kariya to wince in pain and have the camera pull back to reveal that Jin left himself open so he could fatally wound Kariya.

One of the main character signature moves is Kugi punch - actually series of really fast punches, each one stronger then the last, with slightly delayed effect. Normally enemies stay alive after that, but when it hits someone except arc villain, results get really messy.

Umineko: When They Cry has this happen during a fight between Virgilia and Beatrice. One of the combatants makes an illegal move which means that she lost the fight automatically, as she did not successfully counter all attacks.The soon to be loser is about to kill her opponent when she informs her of this. This causes all attacks made after that point to be illusory because she was already dead. The previously checkmated opponent is therefore left completely unharmed

Happens to Seiryu in YuYu Hakusho. Sliced 16 times by Hiei, and he wonders what happened before the camera (meaning he) starts dropping to the ground in pieces. Happens again (though not a killing blow this time) against Makintaro in the Dark Tournament. Hiei flashes his sword, Makintaro tells him to bring it on—and Hiei pulls out his severed arm, saying he already did.

Comic Books

This happens to assassin Evelyn Cream in Miracleman when he's decapitated by a monster dog but doesn't realize it until the end of the issue.

Lobo uses his special attack "Five-Second Delayed Special Whaperoo" in Lobo: Infanticide

A nonlethal example happened in one Spider-Man comic where the hero fought Tombstone. Spidey put all he had into one punch to the villain's face. Tombstone didn't seem hurt at first (even though his nose was bleeding), he threatened Spidey, then lifted his fist to hit him... Then he got dizzy, and finally collapsed, out cold. Spidey quipped, "Well what do you know? Like a dinosaur. Took a few seconds to reach his brain."

Fanfiction

In Fate/Long Night, after Nymeria stabs Arturia in the arm, she starts walking away. Arturia calls her a coward, but she chuckles and says she already won. Arturia didn't notice the stab infected her with Greyscale, and the infection was slowly traveling up her arm and would have reached her body if Brandon hadn't stepped in and chopped it off.

A non-lethal variant when Blake Belladonna and Okita Souji have a friendly duel with wooden swords. After a few exchanges, Okita Flash Steps past Blake and Okita's sword is now warped out of shape. Blake wonders what just happened, then falls over in pain from having been hit by Okita's Three Stage Thrust.

Li Shuwen punches Ren Alter once with his No Second Strike technique, then nonchalantly walks away. Confused and offended, his opponent tries to attack him, only to explode and be reduced to ashes.

In Like a Phoenix from the Ashes Harry cast an overpowered Reducto that hit several Death Eaters and "all three fell to the ground dead, even though their bodies weren't aware of this fact yet."

In the Ruby and Nora story Atlas Jacques Schnee gave Nicholas poisoned wine once he was set to inherit the Schnee Dust Company, and is able to tell Nicholas how he set Willow up as a hedonist so that he would get the SDC before Nicholas dies. This is ironically repeated in Cold after Jacques' dictatorship over Atlas has fallen, when Willow gives him poisoned wine. In this case, it only paralyzed Jacques, but Willow tells him that he'll be killed by the resistance before the poison wears off, which is what happens next.

In Speed Ron accidentally acquires super-speed and uses kinetic energy to send a mess of splinters at a couple of giants shortly before the final battle while thinking "They're dead, they just haven't noticed yet."

Just as the front doors opened, revealing a panting Amelia Bones and a small squad of rather exhausted-looking Aurors, two foot-long metal spikes hit the troll, one in its throat and the other in its left eye. The troll roared in pain, stumbling toward its attacker. It took the troll a full ten seconds to realize that, yes, in fact, it was dead, and fall forward, driving the spikes further into its body as it collapsed with a ground-shaking thud onto the flagstones.

Film

Kill Bill has this with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which is delivered to Bill himself by the Bride at the end of the film.

Used for dramatic effect in Saving Private Ryan during the Normandy scene, where severely injured soldiers in the throes of shell-shock wander the battlefield before succumbing.

In Ghost Ship, a thin wire rips through everyone on the dance-floor of the ship, instantly cutting them all in half; and yet they remain standing perfectly upright... and slowly all fall apart (when in actuality they'd obviously fall immediately).

Something similar happened in Underworld (2003) where Selene decapitates Victor. And it takes several seconds for his head to fall off.

In one of the The Pink Panther movies, a ninja-master gives a demonstration where he strikes a rock, and nothing happens; then he leaves, and the entire room collapses.

Wagons East: During the gunfight at the end of the movie, Julian and Slade have a stand off during which Slade is shot but doesn't notice until Julian points it out to him.

Darth Maul takes a second to realize he's been cut in half at the end of the climactic fight scene in The Phantom Menace.

V for Vendetta: A more peaceful version than usual. Of those who ran Larkhill, Dr. Delia Surridge is the only one to express genuine remorse for her actions, so V grants her a quick, painless death via an injection of poison while she's asleep. He then wakes her and they have a conversation where she apologizes to him before dying.

Delia: Are you going to kill me now? V: (holds up empty syringe) I killed you ten minutes ago, while you slept. Delia: (fearfully) Is there any pain? V: No. Delia: Thank you. ... Is it meaningless to apologize? V: Never. Delia: I'm so sorry... (dies quietly)

In Kiss of the Dragon, Jet Li hits the bad guy with the titular attack, paralyzing him. Jet Li then has time to describe what is about to happen, right before starting the process of death by yanking the needle out and walking out of the room. The bad guy then starts to have extreme pain and blood starts leaking out of every possible opening until he dies.

In the obscure horror film Skinned Deep, the Surgeon General takes a swing at a kid with his knife. Nothing seems to happen, and the kid remarks that he missed. Cue kid splitting in half.

The titular character of the Rambo series describes the death of one of his fellow soldiers in First Blood this way to his commanding officer, after learning that exposure to Agent Orange gave him cancer. "Got himself killed in 'Nam, didn't even know it."

The Men Who Stare at Goatsparodies this with the Dim-Mak, a technique which can supposedly kill a person with a simple touch... 20 years after it's been executed. At least, Lyn believes this

In D.O.A. (1950) Edmond O'Brien goes to a doctor when he feels ill, only to be told he's been poisoned, and that it's too late to do anything, leaving him a day or two to live. When he tells the doctor he has no idea how he was exposed the doctor tells him "I don't think you fully understand, Bigelow. You've been murdered."

A variation of this occurs in The World Is Not Enough. The anarchist Reynard has an untreatable bullet wound to the head; the injury will eventually kill him, but until it does, it makes him stronger and more resistant to pain every day. And he knows this, giving Bond an enemy that literally has nothing to lose - he is not just losing the ability to feel pain, but the ability to feel anything. In fact, when Bond threatens to kill him in one scene, Reynard chuckles and says, "You forget... I'm already dead."

A variation that is actually used as a strategic ploy in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). Napoleon Solo entices the Big Bad, Victoria Vinciguerra into answering her ship's radio by telling her that he killed her husband and said husband died very ignominiously. She retaliates by explaining in detail how she's going to kill him and everyone he knows slowly and painfully. Solo replies by that simply by answering the radio signal and thus giving away her position, she inadvertently set every last piece of action into play and that a warhead that homed in on the signal will be with her before she can make it to shore. She looks up, and BOOM!

The Wolf of Wall Street uses a nonfatal variant when Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) take some years-old "Lemmon 714" Quaaludes and keep popping pills because they don't initially feel any effects. An hour and a half after taking the drugs, Jordan realises too late that he was Already Intoxicated — and since he took so many pills, the effects are so extreme that he abruptly starts losing control of his speech and motion.

After fifteen years in storage, the Lemmons had developed a delayed fuse. It took ninety minutes for these little fuckers to kick in, but once they did, pow! I mean, I had skipped the tingle phase and went straight to the drool phase. These little bastards were so strong, I discovered a whole new phase: the cerebral palsy phase.

Lieutenant: I think we can handle one little girl. I sent two units, they're bringing her down now. Agent Smith: No lieutenant, your men are already dead.

Folklore

In the Iranian tale of "What the Rose Did to the Cypress" Prince Almās-ruh-baksh cuts a man in two at the waist. He mutters something unintelligible, reaches for the prince and then collapses.

Literature

In Sergey Lukyanenko's Line of Delirium, this is the favorite tactic of the Bulrathi when fighting humans during the Vague War. They would strike the liver with a special move then let the prisoner go. The victim would feel perfectly fine for several days before the liver would suddenly fail, and the person would die. The main character ends up on the receiving end of this strike at the beginning, during his Training from Hell, but gets better. He later accidentally hits a guy the same way during an interrogation, but reasons that the guy probably deserves it. Several such attacks are described in the book against aliens. The Bulrathi themselves have a gland that, when punched hard, causes them to die of intense pleasure. There are also the unexplained "reflexive points" that can also be used to kill within seconds. The Bulrathi, being obsessed with hand-to-hand combat, also develop a technique for taking down a Silicoid (a hovering column of rock) with singing and a single punch. The main character is the first human to use this technique.

Gar Quithnick from Roger Zelazny's Forever After practices Tian-shi-sheqi, a martial art that demands that death be a summation of life, rather than a mere cessation. To that end, he employs the kuo-tak strike to set up a sort of psychic resonance that kills the victim upon experiencing a certain stimulus. With it, he causes a predator to die the instant it pounces, tells a deposed despot that he will die the moment he considers himself greater than another man (though he can still live a long life of humility), and even turns one enemy into a MacGuffin Delivery Service.

Jack Vance's The Demon Princes series has cluthe, a microbiological agent delivered by needle (usually fitted to a protective glove) which has a progressive paralytic effect. Essentially an extremely accelerated case of tetanus, except that you're dead in minutes instead of hours to days. The onset seems to be able to be varied, from instantaneous to something like twelve or more hours later.

In The Wheel of Time, the Death World of the Aiel Waste has a number of creatures that can inflict this, such as the "Two Step", an innocuous snake named for the time its venom takes to kill a human. Many of those same creatures are popular as snacks, which says something about the Aiel.

In the Humanx Commonwealth novel Mid-Flinx, Teal concludes her contemptuous tirade at the mercenaries' inability to survive the jungle by announcing that one of their party is already dead. Within moments, the native woman's words are proven true, as the tuft of flowers one of the group has been wearing in her hair sprouts parasitic tendrils that spread rapidly throughout the wearer's body and reduce her to a lump of nurturing compost.

In The Clocks by Agatha Christie, Detective Inspector Hardcastle describes a fatal stabbing: "Don't suppose she even knew she'd been stabbed. People don't, you know. Remember that case of Barton in the Levitti Gang robbery? Walked the length of a street before he fell down dead. Just a sudden sharp painthen you think you're all right again. But you're not. You're dead on your feet although you don't know it."

In The Colour of Magic, Rincewind stabs a troll. The troll realizes it's been stabbed, but doesn't realize it's been killed for a good fifteen seconds.

Referenced in Interesting Times, where The DreadedEvil Chancellor Lord Hong is rumoured to keep his sword sharp enough to deliver a Clean Cut that a victim doesn't notice until they walk out of the room and their head falls off. A messenger has to deliver bad news, hears a rustle of movement, and spends a horrified moment checking his neck.

The Hedge Knight by George R.R. Martin. Prince Baelor feels strange after helping the protagonist win his Trial by Combat, and asks his fellow knights to help remove his helmet. That's when they discover that the back of his skull has been crushed, and the helmet was basically the only thing holding it together.

Midway through the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy, some Hirogen attack a Starfleet vessel that's searching for the Borg invasion route. The Alpha kills a Chelon with his bare hands, and another member of the security team promptly starts talking to his subordinate instead. When the Alpha protests, she explains that Chelons secrete a lethal contact poison in times of danger.

Roald Dahl's The Witches features a nonlethal version in the form of the witches' delayed-action mouse transformation potion. There's a chilling scene in the middle of the book when the Grand High Witch demonstrates the potion on an unwitting boy. Earlier in the day, she gave him a candy bar laced with the potion and promised to give him more candy if he met up with her at a specified time — which just so happens to be the time that the potion is to take effect. He arrives in the room full of witches, expecting more candy, but then he sees the strange women's excitement and slowly realizes that they're anticipating something he doesn't know about. Then the potion kicks in...

In the Lord Darcy novel Too Many Magicians, Sir James Zwinge is stabbed in the chest deeply enough to slice partway through the wall of his pulmonary artery. He collapses from the injury, but doesn't actually die until Sean knocks on his door, at which time Zwinge's cry for help and attempt to unlock the door strain the artery wall until it ruptures.

Nibelungenlied: In some versions, Hildebrand slashes Kriemhild once with his sword. Nothing seems to happen, and she mocks him. He drops something on the floor and asks her to pick it up. When she bends over to do so, she splits in half at the waist.

Live Action Television

In the Sherlock episode "The Sign of Three", Sherlock realises that someone in the building intends to commit murder, but once he figures out whom they intend to kill and how, he regretfully informs the living victim that theyve already been murdered. Due to the method of murder, however (a thin blade unobtrusively inserted into the victims torso through a tight belt), all the man has to do is not take his belt off to prevent bleeding out and to seek medical attention. He survives.

In Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, Kamdor, one of several major Big Bads, and Black Ranger Will charge at each other, and strike in passing. Will falls, and Kamdor, thinking he's won, turns to leave... and then goes kaflooey. Will pulls himself to his feet a little later.

In Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, the title character's Hyper Mutekinote Invincible form has a Finishing Move that strikes the opponent multiple times, seemingly with no effect...and then a few seconds later all those hits catch up with them and they get launched into the air like a rag doll. Ex-Aid even paraphrases the Trope Namer's Catchphrase at one point.

In Ultraman Tiga, Tiga and Evil Tiga have a midair attack exchange. Tiga falls to his knees, causing Evil Tiga to turn and laugh before suddenly clutching his chest in pain and falling to the ground. While it doesn't kill him in the series, it gives Tiga the oppertunity to finish him. In Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3, this is how he kills him.

Xena: Warrior Princess: Xena has a move where she could cut off blood flow to a person's brain. It required precise strikes to the underside of the chin, and could be reversed with a different series of nerve strikes. She mainly used it for interrogating Mooks, though, before her HeelFace Turn, she used it more like this trope.

Xena: I've cut off blood flow to your brain. You'll be dead in two minutes. Mook: ...what...do you want to know? Xena: Nothing. I just thought I'd tell you.

On the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "Subway", a man is pushed into the path of a subway train and winds up lodged beneath the car from the waist down. Medics rush to the scene, but quickly realize there's nothing they can do to prevent him from bleeding out internally as soon as the train's weight is removed. Needless to say, the pinned man is not pleased with this prognosis.

An episode of Quincy, M.E. hinged on the killer using the "Dim Mak" quivering-palm technique — he could "program" his victim to die at a specific later time just by setting up vibrations in the victim's body.

In one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Scoobies (minus Buffy) are fighting a vampire. Spike gets in a few blows, then pulls back and lights up a cigarette. Giles, currently pinned to a fence by the vampire, calls out for help. Spike replies "I already did." We then see that Spike lit the vampire on fire already, and it just took a few seconds for the flames to grow. The vampire screams and turns to dust.

In Game of Thrones, Khal Drogo delivers this to Mago during their fight and giving a Badass Boast about what will happen after Mago is dead, just before before cutting his throat open with his own weapon, reaching into the wound, and ripping his tongue out.

Mago: First you have to kill me!

Drogo: I already have.

One of Daniel Jackson's many, many deaths on Stargate SG-1 involved this. Pulling from the Real Life example of radiation poisoning below, Daniel was exposed to a very lethal dose of really bad radiation, and the rest of the episode was was about knowing that he would die, basically no matter what anyone did.

Early on in the Stargate Universe episode "Alliances", Wray and Greer seek out the crashed Lucian Alliance ship in order to disarm the naquadria bomb set to destroy Washington D.C. The bodies they are in take a massive does of radiation, so Senator Michaels and Dr. Covel, the owners of the bodies, are already dead. Once Senator Michaels learns that she is dead, she devotes her remaining time to learning to disarm the bomb so she can save the city.

In The Outer Limits (1995) episode "The Light Brigade", a human fleet makes a last-ditch effort to destroy The Reptilians against who they are waging a desperate (and losing) war. However, one of the crewmen aboard the flagship is The Mole, and the enemy ambushes the fleet, destroying all ships but the flagship. Only a few crewmen are left alive on the flagship. Each crewman has a patch on the chest that displays a color indicator, which detects the levels of radiation. The crewmembers are horrified to discover that the indicator is black, which signifies a lethal dose of radiation. They don't have long.

Happens to the victims of the Weeping Angels if they're sent far enough into the past.

Season 3 of Eagleheart features an episode involving "lagging", the art of slicing a person in half in such a way that they don't immediately fall apart. In the final episode, Chris reveals that he had been lagging Brett/Satan for almost a year.

Blake's 7 had an example of this in the form of a gun which caused some sort of molecular instability or something. Victims were shot, but they would not die until the instability was triggered. At one point, a huge beast of some sort is shot and someone asks why it isn't dying. The scientist replies that he hasn't told it it was dead yet.

Used as boast by a hitman in an episode of Kojak: The hitman says his target doesn't die when he pulls the trigger, but when he accepts the contract. Which makes things go awry when he misses a particular target: The attempted murder scared the victim into paying his debt to the contractor, who now wants to cancel the contract. In response, hitman mentions his boast and refuses to "resurrect" the victim for a personal reason he doesn't disclose. When the contractor threatens to ruin his reputation over it, the hitman kills him and sets out to complete the contract.

Music

Claus "Leaether Strip" Larsen says this at the end of the vocal version of Decoded Feedback's Soultaker: "If you look into his eyes, you're already dead!"

This can happen regularly in pro wrestling matches. The most common use has been nicknamed the "AJPW sell," wherein Wrestler B no-sells an attack, delivers one of his own to Wrestler A, and then sells the initial attack.

Three days after Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker's Casket Match at Royal Rumble '98, during which he landed back-first on a corner of the casket, Michaels couldn't get out of bed. That sparked his first retirement and contributed to his final retirement.

Receiving this became one of Ric Flair's signatures in the later parts of his career: he'd be backed into a corner and receive some sort of pummeling/squashing, only for his opponent to back away. He'd let out a WOOOO, take a couple of steps (usually strutting) like nothing happened, then fall flat on his face. It's since become known as the "Flair Flop."

Stand-up Comedy

On David Cross's CD, Shut Up You (lift flap for dirty word) Baby! he launches into a long tirade mimicking the puffed-up threats rednecks make when they're about to start a fight:

"I just take my eyelash, man, and then you fuckin' put it in your eye, and you're fuckin' dead, man, you're dead for an hour, you don't even know it, man. You'll be walkin' around, thinkin' you alive, but you been dead for an hour, man."

In 1st, 3rd, & 5th Edition, this is basically what the monk's Quivering Palm does. Once per week, a high-level monk can declare an unarmed strike to be a Quivering Palm attack. Any time within the next several (at least fifteen) days, the monk can simply will the target to drop dead (although he gets a saving throw to survive). In 5e, they can use it whenever, but it costs 3 Ki, can only be used by Open Palm Monks, and they need to wait until the next turn to trigger it. However, even if the target makes the Constitution save, they still take 10d10 damage, which is absurdly powerful for an ability that only costs 3 ki.

In the Ravenloft setting, Ivan Dilisnya is a master poisoner who takes pride in his ability to secretly dose dinner guests with a toxin that won't kill them until after they've headed home and think they've gotten away from his mansion safely.

In the Feng Shui fan supplement Out For Blood, the fu power "Harmonious Fist" from the Path of the Harmonious Chord, a fu path for those adept in both Martial Arts and Sorcery, allows its user to launch a Martial Arts attack that doesn't deliver its damage until you make a Sorcery check, and among other things can be used to deliver many strikes that only take effect when the Sorcery check is made to activate them all. Omae wa mou shindeiru indeed.

The Ninjas And Super-Spies RPG from Palladium Books contains the dreaded Dim Mak technique. Only a few Martial arts allow you to learn it and one must be of the most evil (Diabolic) of alignment. A successful infliction of this technique destroys one's ability to recover the positive chi required for healing, leading to one slowly wasting away and dying from the incurable breakdown of the body over the following weeks. It can even be delivered with a finger poke where the victim never knows what happened, and an advanced version can even work (with more difficulty) through phone lines!

In Exalted, one of the iconic powers of the Solar Exalted is exactly this: Your attack connected, but damage will only happen when you will it. It's learned as a thrown combat technique, but may be used with all other arts.

A particularly time-extended version of this occurs in Warhammer 40,000 lore, when an Inquisitor inadvertently tries to speak to the bound daemon Cherubael. Cherubael's very first words to the Inquisitor are, "In my world, you are already dead," before explaining that he had fourteen more years to live until he would be shot by a traitor with his own gun.

Laertes: Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life. The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unbated and envenom'd.

Video Games

Trove: The Ice Sage's ultimate "The Big Chill" inflicts a unique status that, in addition to rendering enemies completely unable to move or act, delays all damage dealt to them until the effect expires. This means you can "kill" an enemy many times over while they're frozen, then walk away, and they'll spontaneously explode when they thaw.

A common tactic among feral druids in World of Warcraft is to land your bleed attacks when the opponent is fairly low on health (40%) and instantly move to another target, knowing your original foe will die in seconds.

Independent of player attacks, there's a comical version of this in the death animation of the Tenders (small walking trees inhabiting the Eversong Woods). When defeated, a tender looks briefly confused, then glances down to find that its body has been sliced clean through on a diagonal. It looks up in disbelief as its top half slides sideways off the bottom half, and collapses.

An interesting example was the now removed Curse of Doom warlocks could use, as a reference to the Doom spell from Warcraft 3, below. Curse of Doom was a unique damage over time effect, instead of many weak hits over time, it would inflict a single, very powerful (but not necessarily a One-Hit KO) hit... after a whole minute. It also had a chance (sadly small) to summon a powerful Doomguard for the Warlock to enslave and control. The spell was firmly Awesome, but Impractical, as the Doomguard would not spawn unless the victim died from the Curse's damage and not before, which required waiting a whole minute (most enemies die in seconds, and for the ones that don't, you usually needed to cast something more practical than Curse of Doom anyways). Even in the unlikely event the demon was summoned, it was still hard to control (as it could turn on its master at a moment's notice), and was not powerful enough to be worth it. The new Doom is a more standard damage over time spell (although there are still more gaps in it than in most spells of the sort, it only damages every fifteen seconds) and summons imps instead of a Doomguard (which has become summonable with its own separate spell).

With the advent of the Mists of Pandaria expansion, and the inclusion of the Monk class, comes the Touch of Death skill exclusive to Windwalker monks. The victim suffers half the attacker's health pool in damage following a short period after a single animated strike; timed correctly, the monk can use this skill, cease attacking, and walk away in true Fist Of The North Star fashion before the victim keels over dead.

Gen from Street Fighter Alpha 2, whose martial art style is classified as an "assassination fist" like Kenshiro's, has a Super Combo called Shitenshuu or the "Death Point Attack". When Gen performs the Lv. 3 version on his opponent, it will cause a timer to appear above their head, which will cause an instant K.O. Unlike other examples, the effect can be canceled if the opponent manages to strike Gen before the countdown reaches zero. His other Super Combo, Zan Ei is a lesser version of this. He dashes forward hitting his opponent once, but after the pass, the opponent receives multiple mysterious hits. His Zetsumei Ultra Combo in Street Fighter IV is a more elaborate Zan Ei, with four quick silhouetted strikes, a Badass Boast, and then his opponent gets hit a bunch of times.

Doctrine Dark from Fighting EX Layernote The spiritual sequel to the Street Fighter EX games, featuring many of the characters that Arika created, like just about everyone in the game, retains his Super Combos from the EX games. The Dark Shackle now has him saying "The... end!" in time with the deployment of the EXplosive which marks the attack's final hit.

Dragon Age: Origins has the Walking Bomb spell, which causes whatever it is cast on to explode after a set amount of time. Its upgrade, Virulent Walking Bomb, turns anyone else in the blast radius into bombs themselves.

Dragon Age: Inquisition has the Assassin's Mark of Death skill, which adds up all the damage the victim takes during a short period then deals an equal amount in one hit. The flavor text invokes this trope: "Trigger your mark when you are ready, and watch them fall from injuries they never even noticed."

The Final Fantasy series has the various spells and attacks that inflict the Doom or Condemned status effect. This places a countdown timer above the victim's head. When the timer hits zero, the character dies. Usually, the only way to avoid this fate is to win the battle before the timer hits zero.

Some enemies have a doom-like ability that is un-dispellable. Essentially, you're already dead, you've just been given a short grace period. This also appears in the Kingdom Hearts series.

The Air Anchor is a guaranteed hit that does no damage, but the next action the target takes - any action, including healing itself or just waiting - kills it instantly. It's also not a standard status effect, so it can't be dispelled. It's ineffective against zombie-type enemies though, as it's considered an instant-death attack (which zombies are immune to).

One boss has a move called "Cloudy Heaven", which inflicts a doom counter on all party members. Except this comes with a twist, it turns the character into a zombie (which is effectively dead). You can't dispel it, if the character dies anyway they turn, and Reraise won't work.

Final Fantasy IX has a status effect known as Heat, which can be inflicted through Quina's Blue Magic attack "Mustard Bomb." How this works is that the afflicted will automatically KO if they take any action due to the intense heat surrounding them. If a character has already chosen their next move when they get inflicted with this status, they are pretty much doomed.

In Final Fantasy XIV, most primals have a phase consisting primarily of a DPS check. Be it Ifrit's nails, or Titan's heart - they all have in common that at the end of the phase, the primals become unattackable and unleash their ultimate attacks. Normally they only result in high, but survivable damage, however, the party failed to do sufficient damage, the attack will always prove fatal, giving you a few more seconds to live after Ifrit's nails disappeared, during which you can attack normally, even though in reality you are about to die.

The AI in Final Fantasy Tactics takes this trope literally. It will not attack a character with the doom status since they're going to die of it anyway.

In Anarchy Reigns, Zero's mutant execution attack involves slicing through a mutant's body, causing the arms to fall off: usually non-fatal, considering mutants can regenerate arms. Then Zero turns his back to the mutant, and the second he sheaths his swords, the mutant is cut in half and dies.

In Diablo III, the Monk class's skill Exploding Palm causes the target to explode if it is killed by Damage Over Time. Given that Diablo III is chock full of Shout Outs, the reference to Fist of the North Star was no doubt intentional. There is a Legendary item called "Gungdo Gear" that causes this explosion to apply Exploding Palm to every enemy in the wake of the first, which can, if applied carefully, can lead to "You all are already dead".

Taokaka's Astral Heat has her (intending) to finish the opponent after saying this, word for word. Considering the nature of Blaz Blue, it is very likely that it's a Shout-Out.

Hakumen even has an achievement named this in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. Its objective is to deal 10,000 damage in one combo, which is such an absurdly high amount that if you're not dead, you're probably one good poke from dead (unless the opponent is also Hakumen or Tager, who are the only characters that can withstand such a combo at whopping 12,000 and 13,000 health respectively).

In Shinobi for the PS2, Hotsuma can attack multiple enemies in a chain, and after the chain attack is completed, they all fall to pieces.

Similarly, Vergil impales Arkham and pulls his sword out, but Arkham doesn't seem to react and starts yelling at him while Vergil slowly sheathes his sword. It's only when his sword is completely sheathed with a CLICK that Arkham screams in pain and falls over.

One of the Nekomata's attacks in Disgaea 4 is a dead ringer for the Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken. After delivering multiple blows, the opponent becomes irate and walks up. Cue the explosion about halfway there.

Made more obvious in Disgaea D2 where they rip health bars straight out of the Fist of the North Star fighting game whenever the attack is used.

At the beginning of Shadow's story in Sonic '06, Shadow briefly pulls this with several robots by simply running through/by them.

Reiji and Xiaomu in Endless Frontier when they perform their Shinra Banshou overdrive. After Reiji wails on the enemy with his guns and swords, Xiaomu finishes with a slash from her sword staff. As soon as she clicks it into her staff, the enemy gushes out blood in the air.

In a really wrong way, [PROTOTYPE] makes it impossible to let someone go after grabbing them without killing them. So they are pretty much dead once you get your hands on them.

In [PROTOTYPE 2] has the BioBomb. Where you insert into an victim a variation of the virus that incubates for a short time, enough to leave the scene, before exploding them into a mass of tentacles impaling everything near him.

Evie's Drain attacks in Vindictus have this effect, particularly the Mark of Death and Bloody Thread attacks. You can hit an enemy with a smash and then hit them with the Drain attack, which you can then explode later for extra damage.

Ukyo Tachibana from the Samurai Shodown series inflicts something like this as his special and his finisher. He runs up to his opponent, walks "through" him or her a few times, stops behind him or her, twirls and sheaths his sword... and one torso is no longer attached to its legs.

Played with in the Reckoning state from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. During the Reckoning, the player character gives destiny the middle finger and tears apart his enemies' fates. Completing a command kill on a defeated enemy causes all defeated enemies to die spectacularly as their fates are literally shredded. To an outsider, it probably looks like the Fateless just killed a handful of creatures in the blink of an eye. Failing the command kill before Reckoning ends allows Fate to reassert itself and the enemies regain a bit of health (Fate has a lot of power in the KoA setting, but not enough to undo grievous bodily harm from a Fateless attacker).

In the fighting game spin-offs, one of Reimu's ultimate spellcards requires you to hit the opponent six times, and a few seconds after you did that, she will release a huge wave of Ofuda strong enough to finish the round in one hit. The name of the spellcard? Musou Tensei, translated as Fantasy Heaven. And if you use it in the final round of a fight, a remix of Mystic Oriental Love Consultation will play, which sounds awfully familiar...Explanation It's a reference to Ai wo Torimodose, otherwise known as the main theme of (what else?) Fist of the North Star. and the theme that plays whenever Kenshiro is about to make somebody explode. Fitting, as said spell card is synonymous with Kenshiro's ultimate technique.

Youmu can also literally dodge it AND take down Reimu with precise timing of one of her ultimates. Nearly impossible to pull off, but it can be done.

Creature Stage. If the other creature is down to five or fewer hit points and you hit it with +5 spit (you need the "Porcupain" part to do this) or have all of your pack target the creature with Spit, the other creature fights on a few seconds before the poison takes effect.

If you kill the specified amount of creatures to "Extinct" them, all surviving members will float up and evaporate in a cloud of sparkles, even if they were still fighting.

True to the series it's based on, Kenshiro can do this to mooks he performs a special maneuver on. Several such maneuvers can be performed on multiple mooks or even a mass of mooks at once, leading to much carnage among the enemy.

The equippable "Hokuto Wisdom" Skill can give this to any other character, including Mamiya, who uses weapons instead of the Hokuto and Nanto kung fu arts.

Fallout 3 features the Mole Rat Repellent Stick developed by Moira. A Mole Rat hit with this will start to smoke for a few seconds and then...POP. Moira's less than pleased with this outcome: she meant to make it non-lethal.

Stung by a Cazador or Radscorpion? Started to feel woozy? Down some antidote, and fast. Out of antidote? Well, you're fucked: their poison doesn't wear off over time, and it'll chip away at your health until you keel over.

The GRA DLC exclusive Power Fist weapon "Two Step Goodbye" behaves in a manner very similar to Kenshiro, and not just because they're both in a post-apocalyptic setting. If you score a critical the enemy will explode a few seconds later. Oddly, there's also a weapon that's named for the aforementioned series, the Fist of the North Rawr, that sadly lacks this effect (it's a unique Deathclaw gauntlet that's otherwise called the "Fist of Rawr" if you don't have the Wild Wasteland trait).

Mr House, assuming that you just disconnected him from the New Vegas network, rather than killing him. This is due to the fact that even briefly exposing him to the outside air causes infections that will kill him in a year.

Additionally, non-lethally disconnecting Mr. House on behalf of Colonel Moore will also make him this trope, as Moore says she'll send someone to "finish the job" later.

DotA has Zharvakko the Witch Doctor and his spell Maledict. It deals delayed damage based on how much hp the enemy has lost since the spell was cast and escaping from heavy damage becomes nigh-impossible. In DotA 2 he even has special responces when the enemy dies to the spell's last damage tick.

In general, damage over time spells are like this if the victim cannot heal themselves in time. Special mention goes to Ancient Apparition and his ultimate, Ice Blast, which prevents all source of healing and immediately shatters the enemy if their health is below a certain percentage. If the affected target's health is low enough and they have no magic immunity or death-preventing effects like Dazzle's Shallow Grave, then they are truly already dead.

Zed's Death Mark ultimate in League of Legends has a debuff attached that triggers three seconds after the ult was cast, dealing damage based on how much damage Zed inflicted during those three seconds. If timed right, Zed can rush in, burst an enemy down, then let the Death Mark proc while he escapes to safety and they explode.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney has the fourth case's victim die of atroquinine poisoning. When atroquinine is ingested, particularly in a lethal dose, it takes fifteen minutes for the effects to kick in and kill the victim. Another person in the same case ingests it, and this time it's the defendant, who collapses in the courtroom because throughout the court session she had been chewing on her nails; her nail polish, unbeknownst to her, had been laced with atroquinine. Fortunately, she subverts this trope because she didn't ingest enough to kill her, and she fully recovers the next day.

Earthbound did this in an odd way. The heroes' health is tracked by an odometer-style rolling display that scrolls downward when damage is taken. Even if you take lethal damage, you won't die until it rolls down to zero, making it possible to survive if you get off a healing effect or finish the battle in time.

The franchise has a variation of this in the move "Perish Song." Once it's used, both the user and the target will faint after three turns. Unlike a lot of examples of this trope, there is a way out for the hapless victims of the move: switching them out for another Pokemon. But if you can't do that for some reason (last remaining Pokemon or under the Arena Trap/Shadow Tag ability), you're screwed.

Pokémon has a number of timed-delayed attacks, and they're usually quite powerful to compensate. Doom Desire, Future Sight, Phantom Force and its big brother Shadow Force, and Sky Attack all take a turn to actually inflict damage, but the're almost all unblockable by the likes of Protect/Detect, and the recipient WILL feel it. "Badly Poisoned" is an ailment that does progressively more damage as time goes on: pretty soon, it'll outrun any attempts at healing. A non-lethal variant appears in the move Yawn: on the turn it's used, it does nothing. At the end of the following turn, however, the recipient dozes off, leaving it at the mercy of its foe.

Five Nights at Freddy's has the security camera footage of Foxy running down the west hall if the left-side door to your office isn't closed already. By the time you've put down the monitor to even reach the door button, Foxy's probably already entered your door and is screaming in your face.

This also applies to the door/light switches being disabled by Bonnie or Chica and you have the monitor up (keeping it down runs the risk of Foxy getting to you), or the power going out, UNLESS you are near the end of your shift and luck is on your side.

If you have your camera screen up, and start hearing a sound like a dying man wheezing, don't lower that screen. Or do, at least you'll see it coming. On that note, if you hear a sound like the clopping of a horse's hooves sped up in your office, you are also very dead - it means Bonnie or Chica is inside your office, waiting to kill you next time you check your monitors.

You might want to put your headphones away if you hear Pop Goes the Weasel on a music box. That means that you failed to keep the music box wound up and now the Puppet is coming for you.

If Mangle makes it into your office, it becomes a matter of not if, but when you die. She'll hang around on the ceiling, watching for just the right moment to swoop in for the kill.

Keep an eye out for Balloon Boy. If he makes it in, he won't kill you, but he will render your flashlight useless. After that, it's only a matter of time before Foxy dives into your face (if the other animatronics don't get their hands on you, first).

If you see Toy Freddy or one of the old animatronics after lowering your camera screen (or if one of them yanks down said screen) and you don't put on your Freddy mask immediately, the next time you use either the mask or the camera will spell your doom. Unlike in the first game, there are no audio cues to notify you that an animatronic is about to kill you, so you may not even realize you reacted too late until you are dead.

In Five Nights at Freddy's 3, if you see Springtrap lurking just outside your office doorway, there's precious little you can do except keep your eye on him and pray that the ventilation system holds out until the end of your shift, because if it fails and you suffer a hallucination, no force on this green earth will save you. If you see Springtrap run past you while you have either control panel up, don't put them down...or do. As with the wheezing breathing in the first game, at least you'll see it coming. It can be averted if you see him staring at you through your office window. You can call up the camera and play an audio cue in a nearby room, and there's a chance he'll leave to follow it, as shown in Markiplier's Let's Play.

WarCraft III has the Pit Lord hero's ultimate spell, appropriately titled Doom. Doom deals severe damage over time to a unit and cannot be dispelled or canceled in any way - if a unit is afflicted with Doom, it will inevitably die. To add insult to injury, a powerful demonspawns from its corpse when it dies, under the Pit Lord's command.

The Oracles of Tree of Savior have a skill called Death Sentence which will instantly kill a target after a period of time.

This was added to the already-significant selection of anime-tropes in the fourth Way of the Samurai game.

A Super Mode, poetically dubbed 'Spring Harvest', allows you to slice rapidly through surrounding enemies for a few seconds, leaving them staggering in your wake... until you end the massacre by dramatically sheathing your sword, and they all collapse in fountains of High-Pressure Blood the moment the guard clicks against the sheath.

You can also do it with unarmed attacks, in which case you just finish with a dramatic flourish - though sadly, this does NOT make your enemies explode instead...

Used for the death-scenes of some major characters - when killed, they simply drop to one knee, and then get a final scene where they stagger to their feet and keep going for a few seconds before collapsing with a dramatic line on their lips.

NetHack lets you do this accidentally to yourself. If you use a scroll of genocide on your normal race while polymorphed into something else, "you feel dead inside" and will die should you change back. If you quit, the death message is "quit while already on Charon's boat".

Okumura's death reveals this is the case for mental shutdowns. If someone's Shadow is destroyed, that's it: a short time later, the recipient lapses into a vegetative state for which there's no known cure, or even dies if the shock is too great.

In Monster Hunter, if you get knocked into the air by an attack and lose your remaining HP as a result of the attack or while in the air (such as due to Fireblight or poison), you won't faint just yet; only when you try to get back up will it suddenly happen. If you can get someone else to heal you in the meantime, however, you'll get back up just fine.

Hitting an enemy with a fatal Ice Arrow shot won't kill it immediately. Instead, the enemy will be frozen and intangible until it thaws, at which point it will collapse and die.

An enemy under the effect of Stasis+ won't take damage as it is attacked. Rather, it takes all of the accumulated damage in quick succession after the effect wears off.

Dwarf Fortress: Some syndromes can act like this; the game doesn't have generic poison, instead simulating various symptoms and effects depending on the toxin applied, and in many cases the effects are unstoppable. The most consistent examples are Giant Cave Spider bites if you're anything relatively small and alive (paralysis will set in and suffocate you), and Giant Desert Scorpions if you're anything with a nervous system (which will be subjected to unstoppable necrosis no matter the creature's size, and has little to no effect until it all rots off completely and the creature instantly dies about a day later). Procedurally-generated creatures can of course have any of these and more, and when killer effects are involved the dwarf in question will usually die with no chance of saving some time later.

Sticking an enemy with any of the various sticky grenades in the Halo games is a guaranteed kill, albeit not immediate. Some players will attempt to rush the grenade thrower to go out together in the explosion, while others will panic and run back towards their team in a futile search for assistance, resulting in the occasional Total Party Kill and a lot of swearing over comms.

Earthbound web comic The Chosen Four subverted this in a very funny way, doing a Shout-Out to Fist of the North Star. The Hero Ness is lost inside a dungeon and getting angrier, more upset and more frustrated every second. A Mook tries to harassing him, and he replies telling "No. YOU listen. You are already dead", suddenly looking right like Kenshiro. It is subverted because Ness had not actually done anything -yet-, but the Mook got so scared -wondering if he was dead and he was now a ghost- that he answered Ness' question.

Aldran does this in thisAnti-Heroes comic by magically force-feeding an opponent some "berries".

Evil Druid: While I appreciate the snack [cough], you didn't have to shove 'em down my throat!

Aldran: Actually, I did. See if I had given you the time to actually taste them, you might have noticed that not all of them were, in fact, berries.

This happens twice to Axem Yellow in Super Mario Bros. Z, first it took him several seconds to realize that, after an attempted attack on Mecha Sonic, his axe had fallen apart. Later, Mecha Sonic spin-dashes him. Five seconds later, he splits in half. Both halves explode.

In one episode of Tales from My D&D Campaign, Angel is listening to a mysterious possible enemy discussing the situation with his comrades, and hears them determine that should the "raj" engage the party, he will die, but will in return kill 1.5 party members. Not precisely an example of this trope, but the effects it had on the PCs were quite similar.

Dragon Ball Z Abridged brings the Trope Namer to the #CellGames to fight Perfect Cell so he... can see if he's made out of bug meat. He, then proceeds to deliver the Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken, deliver the line... and cause Cell to explode. Of course, it's a Good Thing He Can Heal, because we get this wonderful sequence.

Cell:(regenerating) AH! CHRIST! Did anyone ever tell you you're already an asshole!?Kenshiro:(pointing at Cell's severed arm on the ground) Are you going to... eat that? Cell: No! No, I am not! Kenshiro: Well, may I? Cell:(seething with anger) Sure. Make it your last meal. Because after that, you're dead!Kenshiro:No, You are. Already. Again. (Cell blows up again)

Death Battle: The battle between Jotaro Kujo and Kenshiro ends this way. Partway through the fight, Kenshiro manages to tag Jotaro in a pressure point... and right at the end, he tells Jotaro the trope-naming line. This is followed by a "Nani?" by Jotaro who then explodes.

Episode 9 of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged has Yumi slash Walter several times with her katana, like in canon. Unfortunately, like in canon, she winds up dying instead.

The whole "a cockroach can live for a week without a head" trivia. Technically, decapitating the insect doesn't kill it, as it has a decentralized nervous system, breathes with holes in its abdomen, and no blood pressure to bleed to death. However, without a mouth it can't eat or drink, and thus eventually dies of hunger and thirst.

A tactic of some predators for taking down large prey is to pounce on their victim, severely wound a vital region, and then let the prey escape. The prey animal manages to run away from the predator, but succumbs to its injuries much later, and the predator simply follows the scent trail left by the wounded victim in order to find its dinner.

Most often done by some venomous snakes, who bite a small animal, such as a rodent, then releases the victim (which is a wise choice for the snake, as struggling prey can try to fight back and injure it). As the venom takes a while to take effect, the animal is still able to run for a good distance before collapsing: fortunately for the snake, its well-developed sense of smell helps it track down the downed prey.

Frequently in boxing and kickboxing, a strike to the point of the liver has a delayed reaction. The struck fighter often feels nothing at all for two or three seconds - and then collapses. An example from Mirko CroCop◊.

Also a common response to a Groin Attack when in a pressure situation; In the right circumstances, you won't realize you have been hit there by a kick hard until some time has passed. Typically, it's just a few seconds, but sometimes it can stretch to a full minute before the opponent falls to the ground, writhing in pain.

A lighter example is smashing your toe. You'll feel the impact, but the real pain hits you in a wave a second or two later.

Though not necessarily a fatal instance, an adrenaline rush running as a result of or alongside some physical incident can have the side effect of deferring pain. As a result, one could be experiencing anything from a sprained ankle to much worse and not realize it, carry out various tasks, and only experience the intense pain of the incident itself much later. Often happens with car or motorcycle accident victims, who may even walk out of the wreck and then collapse to ground, or be calm when they're taken over by paramedics, only to howl in pain later, when the shock of the accident wears off and pain begins. It's sometimes consciously exploited by soldiers on the battlefield or in similar instances (firefighters in a disaster), when the man involved may still do his job deferring pain, to collapse afterwards.

Crush Syndrome. Caused by myoglobin getting into the bloodstream from muscle breakdown due to trauma and playing merry hell with the kidneys, it's experienced by people who are rescued after being crushed or buried under a heavy weight; they appear completely normal at first, but start losing renal function over the next days; it can be severe enough to mean a complete loss of renal function.

Can happen with heart attack or sudden cardiac arrest victims.

Secondary drowning, which is pulmonary edema (the lungs getting filled with liquid) some time after the inhalation of fluid.

Take a high enough dose of hard radiation and you're guaranteed to die rather suddenly... in about three days. There's even what's known as the walking ghost phase after the exposure there are no direct symptoms and you feel fine for up to a day. What is happening is it takes time for things to die, and they're normally replaced, but those replacements aren't happening now, as your bone marrow is dead. And if you see critical fissionable material, such as the molten reactor core in the ruins of Chernobyl, you've already received a lethal dose of gamma rays.

Ricin, one of the deadliest non-radioactive poisons (it prevents protein synthesis), has a similar delayed sudden death effect of about two to five days.

Being fatally shot doesn't always kill people outright. Considering being shot feels kinda like being punched really hard, it's entirely possible you wouldn't realise you were dead until it all goes black.

Cerebral edema, which sometimes develops in the wake of a head injury, can cause compression of the medulla oblongata and abrupt cessation of breathing. This is why doctors don't let patients who've suffered a blow to the head leave the ER and go home by themselves, as undetected brain swelling can cause the victim to drop in their tracks without warning.

Epidural hemorrhage: You get hit in the head; get confused for a few minutes; recover completely and then, six to eight hours later, you collapse.

Tylenol (known outside the USA as Paracetamol) overdose. Occasionally used to attempt suicide by people who don't know that if you take a high enough dosage you will die... in about three weeks as your liver slowly shuts down.

Irukandji syndrome. According to The Other Wiki the initial sting may go unnoticed, or feel like little more than a mosquito bite. 20-30 some minutes later though... well, it won't kill you most of the time, but the sheer amount of pain will make you beg for death.

As mentioned in the Homicide: Life On The Street example, people caught between trains and the platform like that can survive as long as the train is keeping them in place. The train is keeping all of their bodily organs in their upper body. They can live for several hours and stay alive long enough to have full conversations with their loved ones. The second the train moves, all their internal organs come spilling out and they are dead.

Brain stem death. If the brain stem stops functioning, then there is no way to reverse this and the patient is literally already dead.

Prolonged starvation can leave a body so fragile that eating food can, in itself, be fatal. Filling the stomach only causes blood flow to shift to the digestive tract, denying it to other organs too weak to endure the loss. Only intravenous nutrition and tiny mouthfuls of liquids can ease such a person back from the brink; if neither option is possible, they're Already Dead. Additionally, food has a thermogenic effect; it requires energy to process food before the food can be used as energy. Overfeeding a starving person whose body has shut down a lot of digestive functions puts an enormous energy strain on them.

This actually happened to some Holocaust victims shortly after being released from concentration camps.

SIRS (systemic inflammatory response syndrome) and it's big brother MODS (multiple organ dysfunction syndrome) describe a state where a stress (sepsis, blood loss, hypoxia, etc) causes extensive tissue damage to multiple organ systems. The heart and brain may be alive and might survive the inciting incident, but if the tissue damage to those other organs is irreparable, the death spiral begins. Because the body has a stereotyped inflammatory reaction to these stresses, the pathophysiology is the same regardless of the cause. More at The Other Wiki.

A ruptured spleen can feel like nothing worse than a bellyache, at least until you've bled out so severely that you turn gray and keel over.

One of several potentially lethal species of Cone snails, Conus geographicus, is known as the "cigarette snail"- those unfortunate enough to pick up one of these pretty shells with an occupant are said to have just enough time left to smoke a cigarette before the snail's cocktail of toxins turns off their entire nervous system. There is no antidote, but some victims have survived by being placed on heart-surgery level life support until the toxin wears off.

Rabies. By the time one starts showing symptoms like violent movement and paranoia, the virus has already made it to the brain, at which point there is next to no chance of survival. Only a handful of people have ever reached that stage and lived to speak of it, and only after receiving an experimental treatment called the Milwaukee Protocol, which involves an induced coma. Hell, even the Milwaukee Protocol didn't help in the majority of cases when doctors tried it.

The "Destroying Angel" mushrooms in the genus Amanita. It prevents RNA replication, and like radiation poisoning there is a "walking ghost" phase (after gastrointestinal symptoms) where you feel fine as it turns off your liver and kidneys. Treatment is possible if it's caught in time, but Amanitas are responsible for most mushroom deaths.

Something resembling a "five point palm exploding heart technique" is technically possible. A strong blow to the area of the chest in front of the heart (precordium) during the small period in which the heart is highly sensitive to mechanical or electrical disruption can induce ventricular fibrillation, which produces light-headedness followed quickly by unconsciousness and eventually (within a few minutes) death. This is called Commotio Cordis, and does happen on occasion to young athletes, especially children, such as when they are struck in the chest by baseballs. An elevated heart rate provides more opportunities for a fatal disruption to occur. Because the window of vulnerability is so fleeting (on the order of a few tens of milliseconds), doing this intentionally to a person without them being hooked up to a heart monitor (and knowing precisely when during the cardiac cycle to time the blow) is impossible.

Leaving an injury untreated could result in an embolism later.

The whole point of murder by poison is that the victim dies sometime after the deed is technically done.

Similar but not always deadly: certain psychoactive drugs don't immediately take effect, in which case You Are Already Intoxicated and should probably just wait. Users who keep consuming more and more are often in for a nasty shock once all those drugs do kick in. For example, cannabis edibles are infamous for this, and a scene in The Wolf of Wall Street (mentioned above under Film) uses expired Quaaludes to such an effect.

An aortic dissection is a serious condition in which the inner layer of the aorta, the large blood vessel branching off the heart, tears. Blood surges through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to separate.

Likewise, Fatal Familial Insomnia. It's a much, much rarer genetic disorder that causes progressively worse insomnia. Once this starts, the victim will be able to sleep less and less, resulting in hallucinations, delirium, dementia, and death, usually within 18 months.

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